


Making Amy

by Canaan



Category: Doctor Who, Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Angst, Character Study, Crossover, Drama, Dubious Consent, F/F, F/M, M/M, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-15
Updated: 2013-03-22
Packaged: 2017-11-29 08:20:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/684835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canaan/pseuds/Canaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In HonorH's <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/397171/chapters/653366">The Wolf and the Mockingjay</a> AU, Hunger Games victor Amy Pond is at a club, dancing in her underwear. This the story of her Games. (Well, until HonorH  makes with her sequel and it's jossed.) DW/HG crossover. </p>
<p>BR by Yamx. Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the setting, and I'm not making any money.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Wolf and the Mockingjay](https://archiveofourown.org/works/397171) by [HonorH](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HonorH/pseuds/HonorH). 



> **This story is terrible. I don't mean badly written. But it's the Hunger Games. HORRIBLE TRIGGERY THINGS HAPPEN.** People die brutally. Graphic violence is graphic. Underage characters are dying and killing and screwing. Horrifying things happen. There is dub!con. About the only terrible thing that doesn't happen here is there is no incest, because nobody is related to anybody else in this 'verse, even if they were in Doctor Who. There is one more warning I'm leaving out because it gives away a major plot point. If you need to know, for the love of little green apples, please ask.
> 
> If you want to read something with a happy ending, I can't promise that here. Please don't scar yourself on my account. Go read HonorH's [The Wolf and the Mockingjay](http://archiveofourown.org/works/397171/chapters/653366) instead.

The sea gives life. Amy Pond has always known this. She's been out on the family boat unless she was in school since before she can remember. Big tuna and tiny shrimp and spiny red lobster...most of them go to the Capitol, but there is almost always enough to keep the Ponds fed, too. When the catch is poor, there are hermit crabs to capture, clams to dig, and seaweed to help fill the belly.

District 4 does not usually go hungry, as long as they work hard.

When Amy is seven, the District rides out the worst storm in living memory. By the time it has passed, her family and so many others have lost everything on land.

At least their boat survived.

There's no time to rebuild, not when the Capitol's quota has gone so long unmet. Boat repair comes first, first the Capitol's big trawlers and then the small family boats. Amy stays ashore with the other school children and the very old while everyone else puts out to sea. 

The sea gives life, and it takes it away. 

Her parents go out with the tide. 

They do not come back.

***

"It wasn't always like this, you know," Amy says languidly as the sun bakes her. She has one arm draped along the edge of the skiff as it drifts, waiting for the slightest vibration from one of the drop lines draped over the side, and the other flung over her eyes to protect them from the sun. "Right after the Dark Days, you couldn't go out on a boat or even down to the beach unless you were working one of the Capitol trawlers. Nana Jan told me."

Rory's voice comes to her from the stern, where she sure he's watching his lines seriously, like it isn't a Sunday with no school and perfect weather. "What do you mean? District 4 was the first to begin supplying food again after the war. Plus there's the beach. Capitol people always like the beach. So the Capitol's happy to let us do what we do, as long as we keep fishing."

"That's what they tell us in school." Amy shrugs. "Nana Jan says they tried to control everything, like they would with fields or stock, but you can't keep sailors from the sea. There were mutinies out there, with District folk taking over the trawlers. I mean, it's not like we stopped fishing, but all the Peacekeepers went swimming, and Peacekeepers can't swim. Or couldn't, then, Nana Jan says. More Peacekeepers came, but all they did was check the quota, and they didn't stop people building their own boats."

She gets a tug, then, and immediately she's up on her knees, feeling the play of the line under her fingers and setting the hook. She pulls her struggling catch up, hand over hand, and Rory helps her land it with the hand net.

By the time they've got it in the boat, he has a bite of his own, so it's a few minutes before he asks, "Is that why it's so important to you? Winning the skiff for today, I mean?"

It's not like Amy hasn't been out on the water since she lost her family. But it's one thing to go out on one of the community home's little boats with an older teenager and two or three other orphaned kids to help add to the stewpot. It's another to have won the use of the skiff for a day, to go out just to be on the ocean, with nobody along but her best friend.

Her best friend, who really doesn't get it. Rory's parents work for pay on the big Capitol trawlers, and he's apprenticed with Mr. Santos, the apothecary. When she was eight and he was ten, she actually had to teach him how to fish with a net in the estuary, and today is the first time he's put a fishing line in the water.

She's twelve now, and she beat all the other twelves in the community home at the training contest for this day with the skiff. No amount of training down on the beach with the other school kids can match what they do in the community home. The contest was knives this week, and she may not be as strong as some of the other kids, but she's much, much sneakier. A day on the skiff is her reward, but the real reward is knowing that if she ever goes to the Games, she'll have a better chance at surviving.

And she can never tell Rory that. He doesn't understand knowing that the community feeds you partly so you'll be the best prepared to volunteer when some twelve or thirteen-year-old who's barely had the basic training gets reaped.

But Rory is one of the most genuine, nicest people Amy knows. There's an innocence she wants to help him keep. _"Is that why it's so important to you? Winning the skiff for today?"_ he wants to know.

 _Oh, Rory._ "Yeah. Yeah, it is."

***

Four years later, despite the eleven older kids from District 4's community homes who've gone to the Games since Amy was seven, the worst part of Reaping Day is the boredom. It's a big district, all far-flung fishing villages except for the central city with the processing plants, and there are plenty of other kids who might go to the Games. Either Amy won't go or she will, and then she won't have to worry about it anymore.

Boredom, on the other hand, is inevitable.

The ride to the city takes hours, all of the kids sitting on hard benches in the too-warm, windowless train cars. At least they won't be divided by age and sex till they come to the big square in front of the Justice Building, so Amy and Rory get to sit together. As far as Amy's concerned, he and the other kids have it worse than she does. They always have to say goodbye to their parents before they get on the train, never knowing if it will be the last time.

Some things are easier when you don't have anybody.

Their train must be one of the last ones in, because the square in front of the Justice Building is already almost full. She gives Rory's hand one last squeeze and lets go, helping one of the younger kids from the community home find the other twelves before going to stand with the sixteens herself.

Amy stands through the obligatory history speech, bored. It's not like it ever changes. On the stage, Cassia looks as bored as Amy feels, though she keeps her bright smile in place. She's been District 4's escort for longer than Amy's been alive, so that's no surprise. Beside her, the handful of living District 4 victors sit--or, well, Finnick paces. He's the only one Amy knows by name, since she was already eight years old when he won his Games. Somehow, even pacing looks good on him. 

They won't all be going to the Capitol to mentor, of course, but except for Annie, who they say went mad last year, they all have to be here for the Reaping, just like the kids. _The victors get all sorts of good things--they're rich and famous and take trips to the Capitol. But they're the only grown-ups who still have to be here just like kids. Is that the truth about being a victor? Does winning just make you a kid to the Capitol forever?_

She gives herself a little shake when Cassia gets up and goes to the reaping bowl. Last year, they drew a girl first, so this year, they draw a boy. Elio Hill. Amy breathes a sigh of relief when it isn't Rory. Elio is a big boy, probably seventeen or eighteen. He can handle it, as much as any of them can.

And Rory is safe. It's his last year. He's safe.

She doesn't even hear the name of the girl they draw after that. It's a youngster from another village, twelve or thirteen years old, with dark hair and the kind of bronze skin that Amy would kill for, because it never seems to burn in the sun. She has to know that no one expects her to go to the Games, not when there are always bigger, better-trained kids, but she's still trembling with every step. As they call for volunteers, she looks like a stiff breeze would capsize her.

Amy looks around to see who will go. It's hard to guess when so many of the kids live in some different port. She doesn't know who's like her, a kid from the community home, with all the extra training that goes with that. She doesn't know which ones are already married. Amy's actually one of the oldest girls in the community home now, because when the older ones get married, they leave it to live with their husbands. 

She's never understood how you can even imagine getting married while you could still be Reaped. But people do, and then they have babies, and what if you got Reaped and it took you away from the baby...?

Too young, or married, or just too scared--it doesn't matter. No one is getting up to volunteer.

That's when she knows it's her. One of the oldest ones who isn't married. One of the best-trained. She will never be as big as some of the boys or as strong as she would like to be, but she's sneaky. She's good.

She's probably going to die.

But there's a little girl up on that stage who's waiting for her.

***

Amy grew up watching the Hunger Games. She knows that once she's in the arena, anything can happen. She has no sure understanding of how things are handled during the week of training, but on television, it all looks organized, regimented, and planned down to the last detail.

It isn't.

Mags is the mentor Amy will be working with most closely. She's a tough, no-nonsense woman older than anyone Amy's ever met--she actually remembers the Dark Days, if only barely. Amy goes to bed feeling like between the two of them, they have a chance of finding her a strategy that may keep her alive in the arena.

She wakes up as the train pulls into the Capitol, and the District 4 team's quick breakfast together disintegrates into chaos when Mags stops in the middle of a bite of sweet pastry and falls over. 

Finnick is on his knees beside the old mentor before Amy can even move, the worldly heartthrob falling away from him, replaced by a scared little boy. Mags says something, or tries to, and Finnick calls for one of the staff to call a doctor.

This is when Amy learns that the Capitol's servants have had their tongues removed.

There's no time to be horrified. Cassia isn't here and Elio doesn't know what to do any more than Amy does. With one of the servants pushing the right buttons, Amy makes the call. She's barely finished when their absent escort finds her, grabbing her wrist and dragging her and Elio toward the door like they're both six years old.

Beauty prep at the Remake Center would be hard under any other circumstances. With her mentor sick and maybe dying, Amy's too busy thinking herself in circles throughout the ordeal. She doesn't pay it much mind. 

Two of her prep team simpers and whines in a way that makes her crazy. The third is a peculiarly normal-looking man for the Capitol--a handsome man, even. She missed his name, some Capitol name that didn't fit him, but his bad jokes and the way he flirts are unmissable. Maybe the cheerful flirting ought to make Amy uncomfortable, but there's nothing personal about it, and she's too busy worrying to pay much attention anyway.

She wonders if Elio is doing the same, keeping himself distracted so he doesn't have to think about the hands on his skin and what's become of his body hair.

She wonders how Mags is.

She wonders if the District 1 and District 2 tributes will turn on her the way they did on Breaker and Annie last year.

The preps finally leave her alone, and she's just slipped back into her robe when a middle-aged man enters the room. His hair is extraordinarily purple, and a green tattoo that looks like nothing so much as seaweed wraps its way around both arms and his face. He introduces himself as her stylist, Hostilius, makes her take off her robe again, and stares at her from all angles in a way that makes her wish she had a knife, just in case he comes too close. Then he tells her he wants to turn her into a sea monster. When she says there's no such thing as sea monsters, he acts as if a tuna had opened its mouth and spoken to him, offering her one stunned glance and then completely ignoring her so no one can tell he's losing his mind.

It can't be worse than what they did to District 12 last year, can it? Or the year they dressed District 10 as sheep?

An hour later, they've got her in the costume for a first fitting, and Amy has despaired. This will be far, far worse than the sheep. She won't have a single sponsor, and without sponsors, she's doomed. Her eyes fix on Finnick as he walks through the door, and she spends a moment hoping if he can overrule the stylist before she guiltily remembers Mags. "How is she?" she asks.

The lost look disappears from Finnick's face as he takes in her appearance. "They don't know yet. She's had a stroke, and she's alive. They won't know more than that for a while yet."

Looking down at her feet, Amy nods. "I'm sorry."

"Thanks," he says quietly. "In the meantime, I'll be mentoring you as well as Elio."

She looks up. "Will you have time?"

"I'll make time." There's a world of unspoken meaning beneath his words, but she doesn't begin to know how to sort it out. "What are you supposed to be?"

"A sea monster," she says, desperately glad of the opening. "He said mermaids were overdone. Can you do _anything_? This can't help me get sponsors--no one will even see me under it!"

At that moment, one of her preps--the normal looking one--comes back in with something that looks like a brilliant blue agave, all spiny points sticking up in the air. His eyes flick to Finnick, then away again. "I'm supposed to fit this for you, Amy," he says, his voice going vaguely apologetic.

She groans. "Just tell me that wherever it goes, it goes points-out."

Finnick turns to see and looks startled. "Jack? I didn't think you did prep anymore."

Jack gives him a wide grin. "You know me, Finnick, I'll do anything--or anybody--that looks entertaining." He moves toward Amy, lifting the horrible construction in his hands.

Apparently it's a hat, and when it goes on her head, she feels top-heavy.

"Take that off her, Jack," Finnick says sharply. "What the hell is Karpos thinking?"

The hat goes mercifully away, and Amy breathes a sigh of relief as Jack settles it on a table. "Karpos retired. Hostilius got promoted."

The sea-green of Finnick's eyes flares hot. "Son of a-- Why? No, wrong question." He paces around Amy, and the look on his face confirms her worst fears about what she's wearing. "Is he doing this to Elio, too?"

Jack nods.

"Are you any good?" Finnick asks.

Amy's not quite sure how Jack knows Finnick, but he's just as willing to flirt with him as with her. "Handsome, you shouldn't have to ask."

Finnick doesn't react much, so maybe that's not so unusual for the Capitol. He covers his eyes with his hand like the whole thing gives him a headache. "At _design_ Jack. You told me you were a stylist. If I'm sticking my neck out like this, I need to know, _can you fix this_?"

The weight of Jack's gaze is heavy as he studies her, and it's a much smarter look than Amy would have thought he had in him an hour ago. "Hostilius is trying to fit people to pre-made costumes, not fit costumes to real people. There's not much to work with, not between now and the parade. You'll have to trust me. Can you do that?" He's asking Amy, not Finnick.

She likes the smart look on Jack's face. It's the most encouraging thing she's seen all day. "Yeah. Nothing can be worse than this."

***

Amy takes one last look at Elio as the chariot ahead of theirs leaves the Remake Center. He looks good. Fierce. Dangerous. A piece of his sea monster costume has become a loincloth, and he's wearing a net with sparkling bits like sea glass knotted into it as a cloak. After some argument, he also holds a triton. Jack thought he needed it, Finnick thought he shouldn't take it, and Elio finally said he wanted it.

Jack had finally told Amy she hadn't misheard, he'd really introduced himself by his outlandish Capitol name as her prep. He prefers Jack--it fits him better. When he proposed her new costume, she was uncertain at first. She and Finnick had talked about costume and strategy. She'd been surprised to find out how much Finnick understood, but he'd said every day in the Capitol was a performance for him. So why shouldn't he understand?

In the end, they decided she wasn't doing dangerous, but confident. Confident would let her play things either way. If she backs it up with skill in the Training Center, it can get her into the Career pack. But without visible skills, she might look like she's hiding some vulnerability. If she wants the Career pack to underestimate her, that will make it look like she's bluffing. 

In either case, sponsors like confident.

Which is why she looked at Elio, but won't look at herself as their chariot lurches into motion. She imagines that first rocking motion as the swell of a wave and herself out in a small boat, where she knows exactly what she's doing. It makes her smile, and as the crowds come into view, she waves.

This goddess thing is strange--Jack explained it to her earlier, but all she could think of with that kind of power was the sea. He said potential sponsors will understand, though, and that's the important part. There's a murmur in the crowd that follows them along the parade route, and if it's for her, he's just been proven right.

She doesn't stop waving, but she finally gets up the nerve to look at one of the huge screens as they pass, to see what her potential sponsors see.

Jack's made her glow gold with nothing more than a coating of sparkling gel from head to toe and her own sun-kissed skin. She's naked, or nearly, but she doesn't feel exposed: she's just in her element, the same as if she were swimming. A large shell, sort of like a clam's but with ripples radiating out from its smallest point, hides her groin, drawing attention to its gleaming pink surface more than diverting it. More shells are fastened into her hair, which hangs loose around her shoulders.

The sparkle hides the detail of freckles and nipples on the screen, in favor of her form. The gangly girl Amy expected, all too-long legs, knees and elbows, and dirty feet, is gone. She's been replaced by a slender young woman, chest fuller than she would have imagined from looking down at it, the lean muscle of her legs giving way to hips which have finally acquired a gentle swell. 

She sees her own smile widen, then looks back at the crowd. She can do it. She believes.

She can be their goddess.


	2. Chapter 2

Mags didn't have time to advise Amy on strategy before the stroke, and Finnick is less than helpful. He told her she has choices--that she can ally with Districts 1 and 2 or avoid them if she doesn't trust them. But that doesn't tell her what choice is better, or whether he thinks she _should_ trust them. She'll have better odds if she can make an alliance, but she keeps remembering Breaker's head coming away from his shoulders last year.

She still doesn't know what made the other Districts turn on 4.

So Amy reserves judgment as training begins, staying away from weapons so no one will know how good she is and visiting the survival stations instead. Those are actually kind of fun, or would be under other circumstances. It's like the two training trips she went on. The youngest caregiver at the community home had sailed out with her and a handful of others and gotten them "blown off course." They spent several days trekking into the desert and then out again, learning what was edible, how to take shelter, and where water might be had.

She greets the other tributes at the stations, because there's no sense in making particular enemies, and starts to get uneasy when the girl from District 1 turns away from her without answering. Did the boy from District 2 do the same at the knot-tying station earlier, or does she just not remember?

At lunch, that wave rolls into shore. She's filled her plate with bread and fruit and some kind of roasted bird, and when she turns to look for Elio, she finds him already at a couple of pushed-together tables with District 1, District 2, and the boy from 11. And no room for more.

The boy from District 2--Hadrian, she thinks his name is--looks at her with burning eyes. They start at her shoulders and linger on her breasts, hips, and legs. It makes her skin crawl, and as his gaze drifts back up her body like he can see right through her clothes, leaving her as bare as she was last night, it turns ugly. By the time it reaches her face, it's gone as slimy and foul as rotting fish offal.

It's just as well they've made it clear she's not welcome. They aren't welcome with _her_.

She moves toward the other side of the room, sighting on a table with a single occupant. She remembers the girl from District 10, with her coal-black hair in hundreds of tiny braids hanging loose down her back and the mad gleam in her eye. Right now a smile lurks at the corners of her mouth, and she shoves the other chair at the small table out in invitation with her foot. "Mels," she says as Amy sits. "And you're Amy Pond. Hard to forget that entrance."

Amy can't tell if Mels is admiring or condemning, and decides to take it as she wants. "That was the idea. I noticed your District lucked out this year--no cows or sheep."

Mels' lurking smile becomes a wicked grin. "Cowgirl. Actually, I'm a shepherd, but my stylist said shepherd wasn't sexy enough."

The two of them don't trust each other, not really. But they fill the time, talking about the worst tribute costumes from earlier years and strange new foods they've encountered in the Capitol.

They do a few of the training stations together over the next two days, but only a few, both of them too cagey for more than that. Mels is terrible with every weapon she picks up and not at all bothered by it, laughing as she swings her sword and it gets stuck in the practice dummy or her thrown axe misses the target by feet. Amy wonders what her real skills are, besides herding sheep.

Mels is the one who bullies Amy into a wrestling lesson. Neither of them will take down anyone who actually knows what they're doing anytime soon, but it's fun.

They eat lunch together each day. It's not an alliance, but the company's comfortable. When Amy leaves for her fifteen minutes with the Gamemakers, Mels wishes her luck, and she says _good luck_ in reply, and means it.

It's not an alliance. It's dangerously close to a friendship, and she can't afford that.

***

The Gamemakers give her a 9 and Elio a 10. Even as Cassia and Finnick and Jack and Elio's stylist, Livia, cheer for them both, Elio won't look at Amy. She keeps her eyes on the screen, waiting to see the other scores and pretending she doesn't notice.

He'll be hunting her in the arena.

Finnick leaves after the last of the scores are displayed. Quite outside of arranging sponsors for them, he seems to have an awful lot of commitments in the Capitol--at least, Amy's sure it's not just parties and love affairs, or he'd put them aside for this week to make more time for his mentoring. 

If you'd asked her before she arrived in the Capitol, she'd have told you Finnick Odair was a thoughtless party boy, because that's what shows when he's on television. Now that she knows him at close range, she can't believe it. It's a mask. He takes mentoring seriously, and she's reasonably sure her mentor is the real Finnick, and the other is just a performance.

He's back the next day, coaching Elio for his interview in the morning while Amy is stuck learning how to move in a fancy dress and high heels. The silly shoes are an entirely different kind of balance than keeping your footing in a boat. Even if it weren't the Hunger Games, it would be a special kind of torture.

In the afternoon, it's her turn with Finnick. "So, confident. What else do I need to know?" she asks as she settles onto the sofa across from him.

He still looks a little posed as he sprawls in his chair, like he's forgotten no one's watching, but the look on his face is very level, and she has his full attention. "You need an angle. Confidence is good, but sponsors want to know you've got something to back that up with. You get three minutes to be not just you, but the best, most competitive, most _entertaining_ version of you that you can be. We need to give them Amy Pond, Victor of the 71st Hunger Games...in three minutes."

It's daunting, when he puts it like that. "So where do we start?"

His smile makes her feel a little better. "Let's come up with some ideas, then we'll do some mock interviews and see how they play."

They start with "admiring of the Capitol," but Finnick says it looks too forced. Can't imagine why. They shift to sneaky, instead, but Amy keeps laughing. She can't keep a straight face for sexy, either. Which makes Finnick suggest funny, since she's laughing anyway, and that's not too bad. 

Finnick is playing the interviewer, and he asks, "So what do you think of the Capitol, Amy?"

_I'd rather be out on a boat._ "It's a bit dry compared to home," she jokes.

"I suppose it is." They're Finnick's words, but his imitation of Caesar Flickerman is so devastating, she can almost hear his voice. "Are you from a fishing family, then?"

It's a dirty kind of question coming from Finnick, who knows she comes from a community home as surely as he does. But it's the kind of thing Caesar will ask, and she has to be prepared to deal with it.

"Yes, but that's a long time ago." She fumbles for a way to make that funny, because nothing about growing up in the community home is funny. She forces a little smirk. "It gets lonely out on a fishing boat, and I'm really more of a _people_ person."

For a moment, she and Finnick just stare at each other. Then they burst out laughing, because she sounds like Jack.

"Flirty," Finnick says when they finally stop laughing, and if there's a shadow she can't identify behind his eyes, his smile is genuine and full of faith. "Look up at them through your eyelashes when you do that. Let's try for funny _and_ flirty."

With Finnick believing in her, Amy can't _not_ believe in herself. She does funny and flirty, and finds them easier together than either one on its own. Suddenly, she's sailing through Finnick's mock interview questions, and if the way he takes her answers feels good, she can only imagine what it will be like getting this kind of feedback from the crowd during the actual interview.

"Can you tell us anything about your strategy in the arena?" Finnick asks.

That's still bothering her, actually, but she lets a secretive smile touch her lips. "That's for me to know and you all to find out."

When they've run through all the questions Finnick can think of, he says, "Smart. Very smart. All your answers are clever, but only to the sponsors listening closely."

"Is that bad? The Career alliance might not know yet that I'm smart." Goosebumps rise on her arms despite the pleasant temperature in the Training Center.

Finnick gets up and walks over, resting his hands on her shoulders. "No. Smart is perfect, because smart sponsors like to sponsor smart tributes, and those are the ones you want. Don't let worrying about the other Careers stop you."

"They'll try and kill me at the Cornucopia, before I can be trouble for them." It's a good thing she has such long legs--they make her a fast runner.

Finnick hugs her, and he might be only a few years older than she is, but the strength in his arms gives her the illusion of safety. "They're going to do that anyway."

***

Jack puts her in a beautiful dress that shimmers in all the colors of the sea. It falls halfway down her thighs in the front and trails on the floor behind her, and the white froth of fabric over her breasts gives the impression of seafoam, as if she's rising from the waves. He takes one last look at her before they leave the fourth floor, the glint in his eye marking a change from _serious, professional stylist_ to _man looking at an attractive woman_. How can he do that without making her feel like her body is the enemy? It's the difference between the love of the crowd during the parade of tributes and the slimy way Hadrian looks at her every time he sees her.

"You're perfect," Jack says.

She stops thinking about Hadrian and smiles. Flirty. "You're sweet. I'll be fine. If I forget how to flirt, I'll just pretend I'm you."

And she is--fine, that is. She listens intently through the District 1 and 2 interviews, trying to learn what she can about her most dangerous opponents. Mostly, it doesn't help her. Hadrian's interview angle is obviously "ruthless," but that's nothing she didn't already know. District 3 just isn't that interesting. Then it's her turn. She teases Caesar Flickerman and flirts with the audience, and it seems to go well enough. 

It gets harder to focus after that, with relief surging through her. She's sure Elio impresses everyone with his competence, and Mels has made it clear she's a little crazy and a lot of fun, but that's the most Amy can remember afterwards.

It's after the interviews, back on the fourth floor and in her bed, that she really feels it. This is the end. No more pretty dresses and careful words. Tomorrow she'll go into the arena, and she'll be more alone than she's been since she was seven years old.

No wonder she can't sleep.

She paces the hall like the ghost of her future self and walks through the darkened living room, only the candy-colored lights of the city penetrating the windows. Their glow is cold in a way that moonlight never could be, and she rubs her bare arms where her nightshirt doesn't cover them. After a while, she curls up in the corner of the sofa with her legs tucked under her and leans back to stare at the ceiling, trying to imagine the sound of breakers along the shore.

She isn't doing very well, because the whisper of a door sounds loud as a thunderbolt in the silence. She looks down the hall reflexively, catching Jack stepping out of Finnick's room. He's wearing pants, but he carries his shirt and shoes in his hand as he closes the door behind him softly.

When he turns and sees her, he smiles. "Couldn't sleep, huh?" He keeps his voice low as he pads toward her.

She doesn't answer, because it's not really a question, and she doesn't want to think about it anyway. "You and Finnick?" she asks, since she can't think what else accounts for that kind of sneaking around.

He shrugs and sits beside her. "On and off. Met him at a party last year. We bump into each other from time to time." Even now, his voice gives the words "bump into each other" a double meaning.

"I didn't think you were rich." Because everyone knows the kind of lovers Finnick takes--they're all over the television.

All the flirting's gone out of Jack, and he wears a serious expression in the dim, crazy-quilt lighting from the windows. He starts to open his mouth and maybe changes his mind, because he has to try again. "Doesn't matter. Sometimes, it's just nice not to be alone."

Swallowing hard, Amy nods. "I keep wishing Rory was here. My best friend from back home. And then I remember I could die tomorrow, and I'm glad he's not."

"Are you planning to?" The frown on Jack's face is as sharp as his words. "Because this doesn't sound like 'confident.'"

"No!" She keeps her voice down, but her anger comes through clearly. "Are you crazy?"

"Are you?" The frown disappears. "Amy, I believe you can win. But the person who has to believe in you is _you_. If you don't, you're doing your enemies' work for them."

Weirdly, it isn't Hadrian's evil gaze that comes to mind. It's Mels' laughter during her interview. "Some of them aren't my enemies."

It makes Jack smile. "Confident _and_ smart. No wonder they're scared of you."

Amy shakes her head, because no one is scared of her.

Jack talks right over her denial. "Try to get some sleep again?"

Like there's a point in that. "As soon as I lie down in bed, my mind'll start going in circles."

"So lie down here," he says, shifting so she has room on the sofa to stretch out. 

Why? Anywhere she goes, it'll be just her, alone in the dark. Jack's right--sometimes, it really is better not to be alone. She swallows hard against an emotion she can't allow herself to feel, let alone identify. "Jack, would you... Would you stay until I sleep?"

He pats his thigh, his face gone gentle and...not old, exactly, but deeper than she'd have guessed he could be. "Put your head here, sweetheart. I'll stay."

***

Sixty seconds.

The sun makes her eyes water after a week in the artificial light of the Training Center, and she slits them while they adjust. Air so dry she can feel it leaching moisture from her skin wafts over her like a breeze from out of an oven. Low desert scrub clings to sand and rock, seldom taller than waist-high, and Amy hopes that ridge off to her right really is within the bounds of the arena. Otherwise there may be no water at all.

This won't be a battle to the death between competitors. It's a contest of raw survival, and that's the best news Amy has had all week.

She won't get through it without a few basic supplies. The Cornucopia lies dead ahead, its golden brilliance impossible to penetrate in the glare of the sun. Amy scans the ground in front of it, instead. There are backpacks--the larger, no doubt better equipped ones farther in. She chooses a small one more or less between her and that ridge, spots a knife on the ground along the way, and decides to be the first one to it.

The 71st Hunger Games begin.

Amy's long legs carry her to the knife while most of the other tributes have barely left their starting circles. She scoops it up without stopping and angles for the pack. From the corner of her eye, she sees the Career alliance almost at the Cornucopia. They could have weapons any time now. She shoves one arm through the strap of her pack, slinging it up on her shoulder and searching the nearest vegetation for cover.

An arrow goes past her head to land in front of her, and she hopes whoever has the bow is really a bad shot, and wasn't just jostled or distracted. She zigzags and then ducks behind the green paddles of a prickly pear, risking a glance between two of them. She sees Elio starting toward her, and her heart sinks. His legs are longer than hers, and she's got no doubt he can use that spear in his hands. She's about to start running again when Hadrian calls to him and he stops.

That buys her a little time, but only a little. She slips her other arm into the dangling backpack strap and then sees the girl with the bow drawing a bead on a slender, dark-skinned figure. "Mels, duck!" Amy shouts.

Mels flattens out without even looking, and the arrow lodges in her backpack on the way down.

Amy hopes Mels gets back up again, but she can't waste time finding out. Elio is coming after her again, and the chase is on.

When the canon fires eight times, she's still running.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. I have a sick note. Really.

The sun is high overhead and the gentle, almost invisible swell and roll of the ground has hidden the Cornucopia by the time Amy is confident there's no one after her anymore.

There have been two more deaths.

There's no shade at this time of day, so she doesn't waste time looking for it. She crouches down on a stretch of exposed rock where she won't leave tracks and paws quickly through her backpack. There's no water, of course. No food, either--if there was any, she's sure it would have been in the larger packs nearer to the Cornucopia. But she has a clear plastic bottle with a wide mouth and a small metal pot which will do for water when she finds some. The hand trowel will be useful, and she takes the yard or so of undyed fabric and wraps it over her head and around her shoulders to protect herself from the sun.

There are half a dozen iodine tablets. After that, she won't have anything to purify water with except the sun. Not that there's a shortage of sun.

She stuffs everything but the knife and her headcloth back into the pack and shoulders it. She needs water and someplace she can make reasonably defensible. Even if there's water here on the desert floor, the only ways to find it are to get enough elevation to see where, or to trip over it. The ridge is her best bet.

She travels at a steady pace now, her throat growing drier as the minutes and hours pass. Whenever she can, Amy walks along stretches of stone to avoid leaving tracks. She also cuts a branch she can use to obscure her trail over stretches of ground where tracking her would be easy. The prickly pears have ripe fruit, and she spears several onto a stick, peeling the prickly outer skin away with her knife and slurping the sweet flesh of the fruit into her mouth for moisture as well as sustenance.

By evening, she's on the verge of staggering from dehydration anyway, losing moisture much faster than she can replenish it with just fruit, but she's climbing the ridge. A band of grey-green farther uphill, more intense than the sporadic bushes and cacti around her, has her hopeful. It's nearly dark when she reaches the arroyo, but the stream at the bottom chuckles merrily, and there's no way she's waiting until morning for a drink.

This is the Hunger Games. The water could be poisoned, but it smells clear and sweet. There could be flesh-eating muttations in it, just waiting for her. 

She has to take the risk. 

She finds a shallow enough slope to descend and a place near the water where two boulders will guard her back, then shrugs out of her backpack. Knife in her free hand, she dips her cooking pot into the flow of the stream, watching intently in the twilit gloom in case the pot begins dissolving or something tries to chew her hand off.

She comes up with a pot full of water, and nothing more.

By the time she's strained it through her head cloth and into the bottle to purify it with an iodine tablet, she's remembered how to hope.

***

The anthem wakes Amy from her nap. She tilts her head to see the faces projected above her through a gap in her camouflaging nest of heavy stones. The first face is the boy from District 3, and next comes Elio.

Had Districts 1 and 2 turned on him after all? How much water was in the Cornucopia? Had it been a question of resources, or had he broken his neck chasing after her? There hadn't been much opportunity for that kind of a fall on the floor of the arena, but there were a couple of dry washes whose banks might have fallen out from under him.

If Amy wins, she can find out. But she'd rather not know.

Ten down and fourteen left. She wonders how long the others will last in the desert. Some of them, she's sure, will have simply run. It might have kept them alive this long, but with no tools, they haven't a hope of surviving the environment.

She's unfortunately pleased when the faces in the sky go straight from District 9 to District 11. That means Mels is still alive. Amy can't afford to be happy about that if they have to face each other later.

With a couple hours of sleep behind her, she needs to get moving again. When the sun is your enemy, daylight is for sleeping and night is when you can afford to be active.

Hunger will have to wait. She won't be the only one to come looking for water on this ridge, and if she's right that this stream is the only obvious water source in the arena, she needs to situate herself farther from it. This is where the hunters will come. There are other ways to find water.

She drinks the rest of her water and fills the bottle again, letting the iodine work as she heads upstream and uphill in the faint moonlight, walking only where she can see well enough to put her feet. She shouldn't forage anywhere near where she sleeps, because it leaves evidence, so she stops along the way to gather ripe mesquite pods and dig up a nightbloom plant for its edible tubers. She'd have more options if she could cook, but for that, she'll have to raid someone else's supplies or hope for a sponsor's kindness.

Tonight is the dangerous night, with no shelter, but she doesn't think the Career pack will be hunting this far afield quite so soon--especially so far from the main water source. Amy's sure she can find a feeder trickle that runs down to that stream or an underground spring once she has enough light. Predawn will be the best time to search for vegetation more lush than what surrounds it. Once she's found a water source, she'll be self-sufficient away from the stream until the Gamemakers decide to make things interesting for her.

Some hours and two cannon shots later, she finds the type of sheltering rock tumble she needs and checks its approaches. It will have shadow during the worst of the day's heat, but the thin, gray light of predawn is enough for her to make sure it's not already occupied by a scorpion or a snake. Now all she needs is safe water.

Looking downhill, she locates a couple of promising spots within her line of sight. She's ready to strike out for the first when movement near the stream catches her eye. Ducking behind the rocks, she moves to a safer angle before trying for another look. It's one person struggling across the rock-strewn bottom of the arroyo toward the stream channel. As Amy watches, the person stumbles, falls to their knees, and takes a long time getting up again.

A person with a pack. 

Amy takes her knife in hand again. Whoever it is is weak, and Amy desperately needs the extra gear. She hopes she doesn't know their name, but she can't let it matter. And anyway, if they stay by the stream, they'll be bait for the Career pack, and she doesn't think Hadrian has any interest in making things quick. If whoever it is moves away, then they'll die slowly of dehydration. Either way, she'll be doing them a favor.

She sets out for the stream as swiftly and silently as she can, keeping alert for anyone else on the move. It takes a while to reach the arroyo, and she stops well back from the edge to get her bearings and choose an approach. She's not surprised to see that the other tribute is down again, or even that they never made it to the water.

But she didn't expect it to be Mels.

She stays well upstream and crosses on a series of stones at a narrow point, letting a curve in the bank and the sound of rushing water hide her progress. There's no sign of anyone else as she sneaks up on Mels from her blind side, looking for a trap, a catch, some sign that this is anything but what it seems.

Mels is sprawled on a sandy patch, her arms flung out in front of her where she tried to catch herself and her cheek pressed into the ground. All those tiny braids straggle out around her head like the tentacles of a dead octopus washed sadly up on shore, and Amy can hear her muttering to herself vaguely. Between the heat and the exertion, Mels has come as far as dehydration will let her go.

Amy tightens her grip on the knife. She should take the pack and cut Mels' throat. A friend wouldn't let her suffer like this. If she can't do that, she should at least walk away and let nature take its course. Getting herself killed stupidly is not on her list of things to do today, and even if she were to save Mels, they're both still tributes. She won't be doing either of them any favors if it comes down to the two of them at any point. They like each other too much for that.

Going to one knee, she sweeps Mels' hair out of the way. Her eyes move beneath the barely-slitted lids, and Amy can see her pulse throbbing slowly in the big blood vessels on the side of her throat. The knife is warm and familiar in Amy's hand.

In one quick, certain motion she buries it in the sand.

She shrugs her pack off one shoulder, drawing out her water bottle and trickling some over Mels' lips.

***

Mels almost died getting her big pack of supplies (crazy-risky-fun), but she'd come away with a fine haul. Amy goes through it as they wait down by the arroyo through the risky hours before Mels can really walk again. Now they have two bottles and two cooking pots between them, plus enough iodine tablets to last several days even if they have no other way to purify water, dried nuts and fruit, rope, a utility knife, matches, nightvision glasses, and most importantly, a small, silver rectangle that will fold out into an emergency blanket.

"Why's that so important?" Mels lies curled up around herself on the ground, and she still sounds a bit vague, but she's asking the right questions.

"We're going to make a solar stove out of it. Not here, but up at the shelter, soon as you can get there."

"Solar stove? What's that?"

"It focuses sunlight for enough heat to cook...or purify water...without a smoke plume anyone could see from across the arena."

Mels opens her eyes, and the familiar sparkle is back in them as she looks up at Amy. "That's brilliant. I have good taste in allies."

Amy feels an awkward little blush in her cheeks. "So do I. I'm sure we'll be much more entertaining this way."

They both laugh softly, but there's a serious question behind their good humor. Mels asks it first. "So when do we have to split up?"

Amy can hear their breath, the brave little stream, and a few birds calling in the silence. "I don't know. So much can happen between now and then. Can you even use a weapon, or were you really as bad as you looked in training?"

The look in Mels' eyes goes wicked. "Oh, I can use a weapon, as long as it's the right weapon. Well, as soon as I can stand up."

The helpless, lopsided smile won't seem to leave Amy's face, and she wishes she'd met Mels under any other circumstances. Another community home kid, or as adults in a rowdy bar after a long time at sea. A schoolmate to tease Rory when Amy was too busy training to be around. Thinking about it makes Amy's heart ache, but she's still smiling. "When we're down to eight, we can talk again about splitting up. I'm going to try and catch us some fish." She gathers her feet under her.

"Fantastic," Mels says blithely. "You do breakfast. I'll do dinner."

***

Amy had worried she'd end up taking care of Mels. Not like she'd have minded--not if it was Mels--but resources are scarce. It would have been a tough catch to land.

To her relief, it doesn't work out that way. Yeah, she's the one who finds water, but Mels helps dig, both at the first site, which comes up dry, and the second one, which gives up a small trickle of water about a foot and a half underground. They haul the dirt a long way away and cover their man-made spring with a stone to keep the water from evaporating.

Amy improvises their solar stove, pinning the edges of the silvery plastic beneath rocks after angling it so it would reflect back on itself. The solar stove purifies the water in their bottles after a few hours of exposure, in addition to cooking food. Which is a relief, because raw prickly pear paddles can make you sick, and she hates eating raw ants, no matter how desperate she is for protein.

Mels has never eaten ants. She looks horrified when Amy proposes it and slips away from where they've been foraging, promising she can do better than ants.

That's how Amy learns about the sling. It's a bit of rope tied into a loop at one end and a little woven hammock in the middle. Mels lets her look at it while the rabbit stew is cooking. She tells stories about using a sling to get supper while she was out with the sheep, and sometimes to drive off coyotes.

Amy hopes the sponsors are as enthralled as she is. She can't manage to do anything but drop rocks with it, but in Mels' hands, it's a weapon of devastating accuracy. "Could you kill someone with it?" Amy asks. "A person, I mean."

"It probably depends on the range. But if I put a rock in somebody's eye, I don't think they'll be getting up again."

It's a sobering thought, because eventually, they could be facing each other.

They stick to Amy's plan, sleeping by shifts in the middle of the day and active early in the morning or after the sun has set. The sheltering rocks they've chosen as their resting place sit on the edge of a sea of cacti where it comes ashore on a sandy expanse of dry wash. There's no way an enemy can approach through the cacti, and they'll see anyone coming from the other direction long before they're close enough to be a danger.

Mels wonders aloud how they can tell an enemy from anyone else. Amy puts on her lying face, the one she discovered in survival training, which doesn't tell anyone whether she's hurt, how close to the end of her endurance she's come, or anything else about how she's _feeling_ , and says they're all enemies.

Mels looks her over, a long, lingering look that starts out troubled, brings a heat that has nothing to do with the desert around them to Amy's skin, and ends with clear-eyed understanding and a kiss brushed across Amy's cheek. "You're right," she admits.

In two days, they only hear the canon four more times. They're on the lookout for trouble, because dehydration isn't a very interesting death, and the Gamemakers need interesting. But except for that...it's almost kind of fun. Yeah, she's teaching Mels what's edible because their lives depend on it, but Mels has a way of turning everything into a joke or a funny story. Her laugh is contagious, and Amy finds herself telling stories of her own, making them funny, too, so she can hear more of it.

With Mels, Amy has become beautiful and witty and funny, and everything else she'd only pretended to be before.

***

Amy wakes in the late afternoon, covered in sweat. She gets up to find Mels keeping watch from the shadow of the shelter, looking as limp as Amy feels. "It's like breathing soup."

Amy nods. "When it's this hot, every bit of moisture in the air feels worse. Come on, let's get the water started while there's still sun to purify it."

Since they do most of their foraging while the sun is down, she still has mesquite pods from yesterday to cook. While the water is purifying, Mels goes out hunting and Amy starts the pods cooking. She steals Mels' place in the shade while everything heats, looking for any sign of clouds. Rain would be welcome, wringing some of the moisture from the air.

There are no clouds, and then there are. Amy's not sure if the Gamemakers cause to them to appear so suddenly, or if she dozed in the heat and never noticed. Tall, white fluffy clouds with dark underbellies hang heavily above the ridge, winds gusting out ahead of them, bringing a hint of cooler air and the blessed scent of rain.

Rain.

Rain!

She's made a terrible mistake.

On her feet in an instant, she jumps back into the shelter, throwing supplies into the larger backpack as fast as she can. She has to abandon their solar stove, but she rips the silvery stuff off the stones and stuffs it into her bra. It could all come to nothing, but this is the Hunger Games: it's best to assume the worst. With the pack on her back and her knife in her hand, she goes straight across the wash. The dry riverbed already hosts a trickle of water coming down the central channel. She needs to get well above it.

Mels went up the wash in search of game. Amy hopes she knows enough to get out of it now.

She finally decides she's high enough and takes cover behind a palo verde tree. The vantage point lets her see down the slope to the wash and the shelter she's just vacated. The air smells strongly of storm and wet earth, and the trickle of water she jumped over to get here has become a broad but shallow stream in the wash's channel. The sky darkens and thunder rumbles in the distance, the lightning not yet visible. How long has it been raining upstream?

She should look for an alternate shelter. She won't be the only one on the move with the storm looming--it may wet the long, otherwise-dry stretch of arena floor for the Career pack. If it were her, she'd take advantage of the extra water in the environment to get to the ridge and go hunting. Even if the hunters don't come calling, Amy has a feeling the old shelter won't be usable for a while, if at all, by the time the storm is done.

The cannon fires, and just that fast, her heart is in her throat. _It's not Mels, don't let it be Mels. Please, I can't lose her, not yet..._

Minutes pass, and while it starts raining the water level stays about the same. She's soaked to the skin by the time a bedraggled figure with a mass of tiny braids appears, walking at the side of the water. "Mels," Amy shouts, "up here! Get out of there!"

She keeps shouting, but Mels never looks up. Amy realizes Mels can't hear her over the gurgle and rush of running water.

An immense rumble, as if the earth itself is gnashing its teeth, splits the air. The sound makes Amy's gorge rise and fills her with terror. Somewhere upstream, she knows, some massive obstruction has just given way, and an as-yet unseen wall of water is hurtling toward them.


	4. Chapter 4

Afterward, Amy can only recall fragments, the soft-edged sea glass that memory makes out of shattering experiences.

She remembers gasping for air and coming up with mouthfuls of silt-laden water, but never running down the bank toward Mels. 

She has no memory of losing the backpack, not on purpose and not by accident, but she'll never forget the hoarse scream in the split second before Mels' head went under. 

Waterborne debris must have pummeled Amy's body--she has a fine crop of bruises to show for it--but she can't recall those impacts. Not one of them. 

She remembers fighting to keep both their heads above water and the bitter, metallic taste of the knife between her teeth, but can't think how she'd gotten Mels in a life-saving hold in the first place.

She knew, _knew_ , that the current would never let them go, and they couldn't stay afloat forever. And yet, by some incredible luck or whim of the Gamemakers, they wash up on a sandy uphill bank of the overflowing main river.

That she still has the knife between her teeth is nothing short of a miracle. She stabs it into the ground beside her and puts her ear right next to Mels' face, waiting for the brush of breath that doesn't come. She lays her fingers alongside Mels' windpipe, the way Rory taught her to, and only when Amy feels the flutter beneath them does she realize she's been holding her own breath.

She breathes for Mels half a dozen times before Mels' body remembers what to do.

Mels coughs up water and Amy looks around for shelter, but there isn't much so low on the slope, and most of what little there is is underwater. In the end, they half-crawl into a vertical crevice in the sheer rock underlying most of the sandy slope. It doesn't provide full cover, but at least they haven't left a trail over the bare rock. When they can walk, they'll have to find a better place, farther from the arroyo.

Assuming it matters. They've got no way to purify water and no tools but the knife. Ultimately, they'll have to risk it--the water may kill them in the long term, but dehydration will kill them much sooner.

They may not have a long-term, anyway.

Even if the water were drinkable, it's not meant to be inhaled. If Mels takes a lung fever, she may regret Amy's rescue. Leaving her to drown might have been kinder. It would certainly have been smarter, but she just couldn't.

The cannon sounds again, as if to punctuate the thought.

Damn. Damn. Damn.

***

There are eight left: two from District 1, two from District 2, the boy from District 7, the girl from District 11, and the two of them.

The sky is clear, and the last of the images fades away. Beside Amy, Mels shivers, despite the mild summer night. Amy wonders how long it takes for lung fever to come on. Rory would know, but Rory's not here, and she wouldn't want him to be.

"Last eight," Mels whispers. "They'll be asking about us back home. Shoving a camera in Granny's face and pestering the cousins."

"No parents?" Amy asks.

"Oh, somewhere, maybe. Never met them--I think they moved on with a cattle herd when I was little or something. Granny brought us all up together."

The silence lingers, and Amy thinks she should go foraging soon. The moon is three quarters full; it will give her enough light.

Mels' cough is dry and pained, and there's no water to soothe it. When it stops, she asks, "What about yours? Family, I mean."

Amy shrugs. The sea gives life, and it takes it away. Do goddesses have parents? "Not really. There's the other kids at the community home, and then there's Rory." She smiles in spite of herself.

"Who's Rory?"

A year ago, Amy might have hesitated. Because as long as you were young enough for the Reaping, you were in danger. But Rory is past that. He can't be harmed, and the thought is enough to bring a smile to her face, even in the middle of the Games, with all their gear gone and Mels half-drowned. "My best friend."

There's a moment of silence, and with the deep shadow of the rockface sheltering them, Amy can't see Mels' face. "Are you his girl?"

"No." Her smile fades, and she's surprised by the wistful note in her own voice. "No, I was too young. I didn't even think about it. Never wanted to, not till I was past Reaping age. He's just Rory."

Mels muffles a cough. "That's sweet. If it wouldn't hurt them so much right now, I kind of wish there was someone back home who thought I was 'just Mels'."

In spite of everything, Amy laughs. She takes Mels' hand and squeezes it. "I can't imagine you ever being _just_ anything. Now, can you stay awake while I look for food?"

She hears Mels shift awkwardly. "Let me untie the sling. You can take it."

Amy hadn't even realized it had survived. Well, good. One more weapon between them. "I'm not leaving you defenseless. It's not like I can hit anything with it anyway."

The rain has changed the character of the desert that surrounds them. New channels, however shallow, mark the landscape. They might not be deep, but she could still sprain an ankle, and in the Games, that could end up fatal. Debris litters the ground like the wrack the ocean washes ashore after a big storm. The waters have subsided a bit, but the stream still isn't back within the steep banks of the arroyo.

It can't give her what she needs right now. She can't see the fish to catch them with all the mud stirred up, assuming they're out and about after the storm or this late in the night anyway. Maybe she can find nightbloom or collect prickly pear fruit, but she and Mels will need a lot more than that to survive.

She walks down to the stream's new edge, the shallow water nearly still. It's not clear, not after the storm, but she can at least see her footing for a few feet, and it's a whole lot cleaner than she is. She strips out of her clothing, moonlight on her skin like the gaze of the crowd during the parade. Wading in at the edge, knife back between her teeth like it was during the worst of the flood to remind them--the sponsors, the audience, the whole of Panem--that she's a survivor, Amy makes herself into their goddess again. She pretends she's in control, pretends she has power, when in a way, tributes are like avoxes: the most powerless of all.

She gets in about waist deep before she doesn't trust her footing anymore. Submerging, she scrubs hard at the mud on her face and the mats in her hair. There's nothing she can do about the bruises, so she'll wear them as a badge of honor. Look what I survived.

She comes up for air, pushing her hair back behind her ears to sluice water down her back. After looking around to make sure she's still alone with the entire citizenry of Panem, she closes her eyes for a moment, raising her face to the moon. She steps out of the river that flows to the sea, which is the goddess. As she opens her eyes, she can already see a silver parachute drifting toward her.

***

For those few tributes who escaped the bloodbath at the Cornucopia but didn't find water, death should already have already come. So when the cannon fires again the next day, Amy assumes the Careers are on the move. They'll be hunting near the main arroyo, so Amy and Mels need to be farther from it.

The water is higher everywhere, but they have no way of knowing how long that will last. They top off their new water bottles and add iodine tablets from the supply that came with them, then follow the muddy little waterways uphill. Mels is still coughing, and Amy thinks she's too hot, but there's nothing they can do about it.

So Amy goes ahead, moving faster as she checks each new area for a place to rest safely...or to make a last stand. Because that's what it will be, when the Careers come for them. Unless Amy can hunt them first.

She doesn't want to get too far from Mels.

Mels may not be entirely well, but she's still terrifying with that sling. By the time they've chosen a rocky shelf near the top of the ridge, Mels has accumulated a double handful of stones she likes, several quail, and a rattlesnake. Though she only got the snake because Amy pointed it out silently and made frantic motions toward it. Mels hadn't known they were edible.

A few scraggly bushes offer some shade, and the sponsors' bounty included some more of the undyed fabric. Amy wets it in a muddy trickle of a stream, lays it out on the ground, and walks all over it. Wound through the bushes, this impromptu camouflage keeps them from baking up on the shelf. They set up a new solar stove at the very edge, where they can peel the fabric back to catch the sunlight on the scavenged bits of reflective foil.

At the right angle, someone might see that flash, but Amy and Mels can't hide forever. They don't even want to. What they want is to see the others coming and have the high ground. Unless the Gamemakers drive them out, they're in the right position to do both.

Leaving Mels to keep watch, Amy digs another waterhole and chooses sites farther down slope for two others if the nearest dries out. At the third, there's water still flowing, and she rinses the small cooking pot she's been using as a shovel, then cuts a couple of the smaller prickly pear pads, letting them fall into it for easy transport.

A whiff of foul animal musk stops her in her tracks. She's never seen such a creature in person, but a glance upwind shows her a brown, tusked snout attached to a low-slung animal on four feet. She can't remember what they're called, only that they're not actually pigs and they probably won't attack humans. This one is snacking on prickly pear as well, but unlike Amy, it doesn't seem to care about getting rid of the needles first.

As long as she can smell it, it probably can't smell her, not without a shift in the wind. Can it see her if she holds still?

It lifts its head. The look in its eyes isn't unthinking animal. It doesn't look indifferent to humans, either. It stares right at her and snarls.

_Muttation._

The not-pig charges her through a gap low in the stand of prickly pear. It's not huge, but if it puts those tusks in her, her odds of getting out of the Games alive get much worse. 

She smashes the pot down on the mutt's snout, the cut pads flying out so close to her ribs they catch her shirt along the way. The force of her blow keeps the tusks away from her legs. She follows up with her knife. The tip hits the thing's eye and passes through it, into its brain.

That's when she spots the two that were behind it.

There's just not enough time. With a spear, maybe she could stick one before the other got her, but she's not Finnick--weapons won't just fall from the sky for her. Turning the pot, she lets it trap the jaw of the nearest threat and turns her knife on the second. The angle's bad, and while she gets the neck, it doesn't kill the creature. 

The first one is out of the pot. It's not a conscious choice to hit the second and leave her flank open, but when she thinks about it later, she'll still feel she did the right thing. Even if it hits higher than her leg, a quick death from a serious wound is better than a slow one, and that's all she'll get if the other savages her weapon arm. The pain is hot and intense, burning in her left thigh, but it's distant somehow. 

She slits the second animal's throat and blood gushes out around her knife hand. A terrible grunt and squeal comes from her left, and she pivots to find the last of the mutts a pace away from her, looking away from her and uphill at--

_Mels._

By the time her brain makes sense of the human figure visible above the cactus stands, she's already brought the cooking pot in as a distraction and shield. Her other arm goes around the ugly, stinking throat and opens its veins.

Under other circumstances, she and Mels could have a fine meal of dead not-pig. They wouldn't risk it with a mutt, though, and Amy doesn't want to bring any of this stink back to their ledge.

That includes on her. Her leg wound is deep and bloody, in the meaty part of her thigh, but it's not gushing, so it probably won't kill her. Not directly, at least. She lets it bleed, hoping the blood will wash out any venom if the Gamemakers made the mutt venomous. If she's lucky, the blood will also clean out the wound well enough to avoid infection, but the odds are _not_ in her favor. Limping, she walks the little way back to the wash that's still running.

She removes her shirt first, tearing a large panel out of the back where it still hasn't been bloodied. That piece, she sets aside for bandages before painfully peeling her pants off and kneeling down in the four or five inches of water. She scrubs with her hands first, trying to get the blood off, and where that doesn't do the job, handfuls of wet sand rasp the worst of it away.

She hears Mels' cough before she sees her, and for one moment, she feels stupid and panicky, angry at being caught wounded and defenseless. 

Mels could put a stone in her eye without ever coming into knife range, same as she'd hit that last not-pig from far away. But Mels has the sling looped around her wrist again, and Amy feels guilty for that moment of distrust. They're each keeping watch over the other while she sleeps, each trusting that they'll wake up side-by-side. 

If they were sensible, they should split up now, before either one of them has to make a terrible choice.

All Amy says is, "Thanks."

Mels nods, moving slowly and looking a bit haggard. "Sorry it took so long. I saw them from up above, but I couldn't get them that far off. Then I had to find something to climb to get a shot over the cactuses. Was it enough?" Her eyes linger worriedly on the blood still flowing from Amy's leg.

Amy nods. "I hope so, anyway."

When Amy's washed and bandaged they go back up the ridge, taking a winding route over hard earth and stone whenever they can to avoid leaving a trail. The leg wound is jagged misery, and it makes her limp heavily. She won't be sneaking up on anyone with her leg like this, and for a woman armed only with a knife, that's bad. Beside her, Mels can barely match her pace. The coughing is getting worse.

Back at their ledge, they stew cactus and rattlesnake. They eat half right then, half that evening, and share out a little pack of fruit chews they were gifted. The Games can't last much longer now, and if this turns out to be their last meal, it might as well be the best they can manage.

As the sun hovers barely on the horizon, the cannon fires.

Six to go.


	5. Chapter 5

The night brings three surprises. The first is a sponsor's gift, six little pills that reduce fever and help to subdue pain. They won't last long split between Amy and Mels, but it might buy them another day. Amy suspects they won't need longer than that, one way or the other.

The second is in the record of the day's deaths. One of the cannon shots had been the girl from District 11, but the other was the boy from District 1. Amy wonders whether the Career pack has begun to turn on itself already, or if some accident narrowed the field.

The third comes in the pre-dawn hours, while Amy is down at their waterhole. Mels wanted to go--despite the medicine, Amy's wound is hot and swollen--but her cough would have given her away to anyone searching for them. With the bottles both filled, she turns and almost trips over the small silver canister that's landed behind her. Inside she finds more medicine, an ointment to go on her leg.

There's nothing for Mels, and Amy imagines it's no random chance that this gift came while they were apart. She raises her eyes to the sky and then blows kisses there, sending them to the unseen benefactor who may just have saved her life. As she spreads the medicine on her wound, she worries about telling Mels that someone thought Amy was worth better medicine, and Mels wasn't. It isn't fair.

In the end she decides to do what Finnick undoubtedly meant for her to do: nothing. She tucks the medicine into a pocket and buries the parachute under a rock, far enough away from the waterhole that Mels shouldn't stray there. 

She won't put the medicine while Mels is looking, because knowing that there was further help, but not for Mels, won't change anything. It won't help Mels survive. It might hurt her instead, might keep her from fighting as hard as they'll both have to to survive the remaining Careers. 

But it makes Amy ache inside to keep the secret.

***

Mels' urgent whisper wakes Amy. "They're coming up the slope."

Amy bites back foolish questions. She gets her knees and elbows under her, staying low on the ground, and looks out through the scraggly brush and late afternoon sunlight. It dawns on her that her leg barely hurts anymore, but she hardly has time to notice before Mels's pointing finger helps her find the other tributes.

They're still quite far down the ridge from the ledge--the two of them Amy can see, anyway. The third is somewhere else, hidden behind brush or trying to circle around from a different direction. She can't tell how they're armed but it seems safest to assume one of them still has the bow that almost shot Mels back at the Cornucopia. Amy can't help glancing at the pile of stones Mels has accumulated over the last day. Can Mels sling them far enough to face off with an archer?

"Okay, like we planned," Amy whispers. "If you can keep them pinned down, I'll get in close, take out anyone you can't get a clean shot at." Because a clean shot may take luck as well as skill. Mels can hit just about anything, depending on range, but she's aiming for small targets: eyes, temples, maybe noses if she can hit them get on. "I'll see if I can scare up the third one first. Take them out or at least make them visible. The last thing we need is somebody getting behind us."

Mels nods, taking her sling from her pocket. The smile she gives Amy is lopsided. "Good luck."

Amy's laugh is more like a whimper. "You too. If we both survive..." She trails off because she doesn't know how to finish that sentence.

Mels grabs the front of Amy's ruined shirt, yanking her close and kissing her fiercely. There's barely time for Amy to react, let alone to kiss back or pull away. Mels laughs softly, wild and free and just inches from Amy's face. "If it's just us left, we can wrestle for it. Now get going before they're close enough to see you!

***

There is nothing beautiful about death, nothing poetic or heroic. Nothing clean.

Every autumn at the community home, they bought a pig to roast. It was extravagant, a feast for the whole village, and a delicacy, since it didn't come from the sea. No, it was something that walked on dry land, that looked at you with dark eyes that blinked like people eyes. Two or three of the grown-ups took the pig out back to where they cleaned fish, and then they called out all of the elevens. They made everyone gather close around once the pig was tied up, and then they stuck it with a knife.

The pig screamed, and one of the grown-ups cut its throat, and blood covered everyone. So they understood, then, what death was when it wasn't fish: screaming and hot blood everywhere, and at the end of it all, supper. Because you had to kill to eat, and you had to eat to live. And if you didn't, you were just meat.

Amy gets around to the side of the girl and waits, trying not even to notice which girl it is so far away from the other two Careers. It makes sense when Amy sees the bow. The girl comes close, very close to where Amy is hiding with a scrap of their dirtied fabric wrapped around her head, camouflaging the red while bundling her hair up where it can't be used as a handle.

Amy pops out and stands just as the girl passes her, pulling back on a thick blonde ponytail and cutting her throat just like in weapons practice, before the girl ever has time to scream. It should be just like the muttation, but it's not. It's a girl, just another girl her age, just trying to get home.

Amy lowers her to the ground gently, trying not to be sick with the smell of the blood she's covered in.

Just a girl. Who was trying to kill her. Who was trying to kill Mels.

After that, it's easier.

Amy's no good with a bow, so she cuts the string and the weapon behind. With nothing but a dagger, the only way to take out the other two stealthily is to work from bottom to top, starting with the tribute farthest down the hill so her attack stays secret as long as possible. It means she has to let the figure out front get closer to Mels, but Mels is already fighting back. The boy has a small shield to protect him, but she still seems to be slowing him down.

The remaining girl is father back, and Mels only flings the occasional stone at her, probably to make it clear there's still a threat. 

Amy sneaks toward her, moving as fast as she can without making too much noise or having an argument with a cactus. She's almost caught up when a rock that looks stable turns out to be loose in the earth. Her foot skids, and she ends up sprawled in the sand with a spear headed toward her chest. Rolling to the side, she avoids the spear, which embeds itself in the earth just far enough to buy her a second. She reaches up over her head, her knife slicing through the big tendon just above the girl's ankle.

The girl falls. Amy is on her knees, claiming the spear as her own, putting the point in just below the rib cage and shoving hard toward the heart, trying to make it quick.

The girl must have screamed, but Amy has no memory of it.

By the time Amy catches up with Hadrian, he's close to Mels. At this range, those stones could definitely break bones, even if they wouldn't kill, and he's added a cooking pot worn as a helmet to his shield. Amy has to watch out for flung stones as she approaches, herself. Mels is accurate enough not to hit her, but which way things bounce after hitting his shield is anybody's guess.

The climb may be steep, but it's not steep enough to need hands as well as feet. Amy has the spear in both hands, her knife left in the makeshift loops of bandage around her thigh. Hadrian is armed with a short, heavy-looking sword, and the shield he carries could do some damage, too. The obvious strike should be from the back--a kidney wound would incapacitate, give her enough time to finish him--but he's still wearing a backpack heavy with supplies. It shields everything from his shoulders to his butt, leaving either the spot where skull meets neck or his sides beneath the ribs as her best attacks.

They're the kind of attacks she doesn't rely on, because it's too easy to get hung up on bone and lose her spear. If he turns toward her, she has better targets: unprotected throat, soft abdomen, crotch, and the big arteries on the fronts of the thighs. It's defense that worries her more. The spear in her hands may be sturdy, but she won't bet that heavy sword or shield can't bend it past the point where it's usable. And she can't be everywhere with it--it's almost like he has two active weapons to her one.

_Clang!_ A stone makes the pot on Hadrian's head ring like a bell.

Amy looks from the pot to Mels, who meets her eyes and grins. They're only thirty yards apart. Amy's seen Mels take down rabbits at that distance.

_Crazy. Risky. Fun._

Amy runs the last few steps. Hadrian hears her, he's already turning, but she's on top of it, and her aim is true. Her spear comes up beneath the handle of his impromptu helmet, hard, and it goes flying.

She moves to block his sword, and the force of his strike rocks her backward. He follows up with a shield blow that mashes the fingers of her left hand. Her spear buckles in the middle, right where the sword's already bent it, and the force drives her to her knees. She abandons the spear, pulling her knife as she rolls inside his guard, aiming for the groin and trying not to think about the sword headed toward her back...

The soft, wet sound barely registers at the time. Amy's knife slides home, leaving blood raining down on her as Hadrian staggers and falls. There's blood on the back of his blonde head, too, where Mels' stone hit with far more force than either of them had wanted to count on. He may not be dead, but he's hurt, maybe unconscious. Unwilling to leave anything to chance, Amy scrambles over, yanks his head up by his hair, and cuts his throat.

The cannon fires: once, twice, three times.

Amy's heart sticks in her throat. She's still alive. So is Mels. Who could probably kill her where she stands, but hasn't yet. Amy wants to go back up to their little nest of bushes and camouflage fabric, wants to make another meal of stewed cactus and whatever Mels can kill for the pot, wants to walk away with her into the desert, just walk away, right out of the arena, never looking back.

Instead she wrestles frantically with Hadrian's backpack, trying to get it free before the hovercraft comes for his body or Mels overcomes friendship or love or whatever made her kiss Amy and picks up one last stone for her sling.

With one strap over her shoulder, Amy picks up her knife and the cooking pot and turns back downhill.

The scream is bloodcurdling. It reaches into Amy's chest, squeezing her heart and pulling her uphill at a dead run. She barely notices she's dropped the backpack, leaving her armed with her knife and a stupid cooking pot again.

When she's almost to their ledge she throws herself into an awkward shoulder roll. She's not really thinking about it--it's closer to spinal reflex--but it does what it's meant to. She's so low to the ground when she comes into view that the big hatchet flies over her cleanly.

She stays low as she comes to her feet. The boy from District 7 is yanking frantically at a second hatchet, but he's buried it in Mels' chest and it doesn't want to come free. Amy's lunge puts the point of her knife beneath his chin and drives it up into his brain. 

The life goes out of his eyes like snuffing a candle.

Amy's back with Mels in an instant, but she doesn't need the cannon to tell her that Mels is gone. She never looks at the weapon, only at Mels' face, frozen in surprise. Now, when it's too late, Amy kisses her lips, still soft and warm, the way Amy wants to remember them. Then she closes Mels' eyes for the last time.

A man's voice announces the victor of the 71st Hunger Games. There's music and everything.

Amy has never felt less victorious in her life.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the tardiness. It's been a hell of a week. The epilogue will come up shortly after this chapter does--I won't leave you hanging.

Capitol magic has made Amy beautiful again. The two smallest fingers of her left hand are taped to a jeweled splint while the bones heal, but she doesn't have a scar or blemish anywhere on her body. Her sunburn is gone, leaving nothing but sun-bronzed skin she knows she didn't come by honestly, because she has no tan lines. Her hair is clean and glossy, frothing around her shoulders in soft curls. She has nails again, shaped and painted. She's dressed in a long, white, sleeveless dress that flows in graceful folds down past her knees.

Jack says the dress is another goddess thing. It doesn't seem worth arguing. He paints her lying face last. It looks like there's something he wants to say, but in the end he just takes her hands, her beautiful, killing hands, and holds them gently in his own for a few moments before he leaves the room.

Finnick comes in, and now she can let her grief show. "How's Mags?" she asks. The magic of Capitol medicine has smoothed Amy's skin, but it couldn't force her bones to knit, and it can't put Mags back the way she was before the stroke.

But it can help, and Finnick's face brightens when she asks, so maybe it has. "She's in there. Her left side doesn't move well, but right after the stroke, she couldn't move it at all. And she's talking again, even if I can't understand what she's saying."

Amy manages to smile a little. "That's good. That's really good."

"It is," he agrees, sitting across from her. "Are you ready for this? Remember, funny and flirty."

It almost, _almost_ makes her feel something. But wearing her lying face is so much easier. "What does it matter at this point?" 

His eyes travel over her from head to toe and back again, but it's not a sex look--not even the harmless, feel-good kind that Jack does. There's something unhappy in Finnick's look, something almost guilty. "It matters. The cameras don't go away because you win, and you might not need sponsors anymore, but the Capitol's good opinion still matters. It's okay to show some real emotion as you go through the replay, but you need to remind them who they sent to the Arena. If they think you were never really that person, they'll find a way to hurt you."

"There's nothing left that hurts." Amy's voice sounds numb in her own ears.

He takes her good hand and squeezes it, gently at first and then harder, to the point of pain. When she yanks it away and glares at him, he says, "There is _always_ something that hurts. Don't make them find it. You promised them a goddess. Are you going to go back on that now?"

She keeps glaring, holding his unhappy eyes until he looks away.

"Between the presentation and the victory banquet, you'll see President Snow. Cassia will take you there. If you have any questions, come find me after the banquet." There's something funny in his voice, a peculiar little hitch she can't quite sort out. If she didn't know better, she'd say Finnick Odair's hurting. 

And he's right: she still feels something about his pain. After all the people she's killed. After losing Mels--after which she hadn't thought she could feel anything at all. She lets her face soften, and if her smile is still sad, she tries to make it...appreciative. A gift to the people who let her be their goddess.

"That's right. Smile for the cameras. Let them see that you love them. They'll love you back." He looks away abruptly and clears his throat loudly, like there's something awkward he can't quite say. When he looks back at her, he's smiling that lazy, sensual smile she's seen so often on television. His shoulders relax, and something in the way he holds his hips changes.

That's when she finally understands. The smiling heartthrob with a different lover every week--that's Finnick's lying face.

"All right," she says finally, because it feels like she has to say something. She models her posture on his. Something wicked wants to flow into her eyes, her smile, but it feels too much like Mels, and she stops it below the surface. At least for now.

Finnick blinks as he realizes she's copying him. He nods once, sharply approving, and leads her to the door. He pauses in the doorway. "Amy, just...remember. In the Capitol, everything is a performance."

***

Amy sails through the victory banquet with only half her mind on the fancy food and the people who all want to talk to her, take her hand, touch her hair. Which is dangerous, because these are uncharted waters hiding hazards she could never have imagined.

She smiles. She laughs. She's still wearing Finnick's lying face, and she's not sure she could do her own right now even if it felt right. There is no part of Amy Pond that isn't set adrift right now.

She can barely eat, despite being hungry: the scent of blood and roses is lodged so far back in her throat she can't get rid of it. She pushes food around on her plate, trying to fake it. President Snow's so-gracious words still ricochet around inside her head. _"Of course. Take a day to think about it. You people always seem to need a day to be sure. That I'm serious. That I can, and I will, and if you don't, the most important people in your life will suffer. That your precious mentors can't save you._

She hadn't had to ask who she had left to care about. _Rory._

They'd shown it again during the three-hour presentation, that conversation with Mels. With Mels, who she's almost relieved for in the middle of this nightmare celebration. As much as Amy misses her, Mels is out of reach. In death, Mels is safe.

_A pair of naïve sixteen-year-olds, tall and slender in a way the Capitol seems to find beautiful. I wonder which of us they wanted to win more. And wouldn't they have loved to have both of us, somehow? More money for them, in the end. Maybe they'd have rented us out as a matched set._

The thought makes her feel ill, and she pushes it away ruthlessly because Finnick's right. Every moment is a performance. And she's sure this was what he meant when he said she could come talk to him, after. 

Why didn't he tell her?

But late that night, when they get back to the fourth floor, Finnick isn't with them. He disappeared sometime during the banquet. To his assigned, bought and paid for affair, maybe? She wonders, now, if any of his many rich lovers were his own idea. 

And with new-found suspicion, Amy realizes it might not be safe to talk, anyway. There could be eyes and ears hidden here the same way there were in the arena. She's sure Finnick would know, but she can't even guess. Especially since he was careful not to do any more than hint earlier in the day. Did he think she wouldn't believe it until President Snow announced his intention to sell her body in person? Or was he afraid to admit it where some camera might be recording?

She ends up in her bathroom, losing the little bit of supper she was able to eat. Afterward she stays sitting on the cold tile floor, resting her forehead against the toilet and wishing she were...

_Back in the desert with Mels. No arena, no sponsors, just Amy and her...whatever they were to each other. Just Amy. Just Mels._

She realizes she's dozed like that when a voice calling her name wakes her. She's on her feet before her body remembers the Games are over. It's just Finnick checking up on her.

She's not sure she wants to talk to him. Not sure she wants him to see her like this. She gets to her feet and looks at her face in the mirror. Jack's careful makeup job is more than a bit smudged. 

Good. She doesn't want to be a goddess right now. "Come in," she says. The inside of her mouth tastes terrible.

Finnick appears behind her in the mirror as she picks up her toothbrush. She makes a conscious choice, brushing her teeth without saying a word, letting him go first. He looks tired. "I wish I could say something to make it better. But I can't."

When she's done rinsing her mouth out, she shrugs. "He'll do it, won't he?"

His reflection nods at her.

"Then there's not much choice, is there? They call us victors, but really, we're survivors." She swallows hard and shoves the image of Mels, bloody and surprised, out of her mind. "We keep doing whatever we have to. To survive." She picks a memory of Mels sitting close by, telling a story on herself and laughing about it. That's how she always wants to remember Mels: laughing.

"You have until tomorrow." His voice is gentle, and his eyes are trying to tell her something. Which means she's right, he's not sure it's safe to talk here.

"Yes," she says darkly. "I'm to be delivered after Caesar Flickerman's show. Before we get on the train to go home. I'm grateful to have a sponsor who's so eager to meet me." She can't make herself sound grateful. At least she doesn't sound bitter. _Flat_ is about the best she can do.

After the flood, those meager, life-saving replacement supplies had cost too much for any one District. Capitol sponsors had paid for them. Paid for her.

A long sigh escapes Finnick. "In a way, I was lucky. I was only fourteen--I had two years to recover from the arena first. You've only got tonight. It's not fair, but that's what it is." He reaches out like he's going to put a hand about herself shoulder for comfort, but then changes his mind and pulls back.

She knows he feels bad, but there's nothing either of them can do to change it. They're both in this boat together. He's just had practice bailing that she hasn't yet. "It's not your fault."

He looks away, like he can't meet her eyes, not even in the mirror. "Thanks. Good night, Amy."

"Good night."

After he walks away, Amy wets a clean cloth and begins wiping makeup off her face. She doesn't want to be anyone's goddess right now. Doesn't have to be, not yet. Not until tomorrow.

Not tonight. Her hand freezes in mid-motion, leaving her half goddess and half girl. 

Tonight, she still has a choice. She doesn't have to be ignorant and afraid when she goes to "thank" her first devoted sponsor tomorrow. 

If she asks, Finnick will take her to his bed as herself. As the girl, not the goddess. Out of sympathy for their shared situation or guilt because in helping save her life, he's saved her for this. Out of a sense of obligation. Like all the other obligations he has.

She can't do that to him.

She finishes cleaning her face, but she leaves her hair as it is. She doesn't change out of the long white dress, but she leaves her shoes behind and pads barefoot out into the hall. 

The carpet is thick and soft beneath her feet. She doesn't make a sound. It's dark, but if there are cameras, they'll still see her. Will anyone try to stop her?

Biting her lip, she knocks softly on Jack's bedroom door. She hears him moving around for a minute before the door opens. He's dressed in loose pants and looks like she woke him up, though he doesn't seem upset about it. "Thought I'd better find my pants. Come in--I hate to leave a pretty girl waiting."

Somehow, coming from Jack, the flirtation is okay. Pleasant, even, because she could tell him no and he would hug her and send her on her way. And that's the point, isn't it? She gets to choose. "Thanks," she said softly, stepping into the room. "Sorry I woke you."

There's a soft click as Jack closes the door behind her. "Don't be. Finnick warned me President Snow had called for you."

She gives him a sharp look, unsure even now if it's safe to talk.

Jack sits on the edge of his bed. "Don't worry, we're really alone--there are cameras even in the bedrooms, but the one back here keeps cutting in and out. Somehow, there's still a problem even after they replaced it." His grin tells her everything she needs to know about what the problem really is. "But I'm not really important enough for them to bother looking at the wiring. So the camera will stay down as long as I need it to."

There's a temptation to fall apart, now that it's safe to do so. But that's not why she's here. "Good. That's really good. That's... So... You know?"

He nods slowly, his eyes gone gentle and sympathetic.

She wraps her arms around herself like she's cold, but she isn't, and it doesn't help. "I can't say no." Her voice breaks. "He could hurt Rory."

"I know."

"And since I have to do it...I'd rather it was someone I trust. The first time." She can feel the heat in her face in a way she hadn't when she'd talked to Finnick.

For the first time tonight, Jack looks surprised. After all his flirting, she hopes he doesn't say no. "Are you sure? Finnick's at least from home."

"District 4 is all spread out along the shore. I never met him before this, either. Just the...party boy...I saw on television." And what will people call her, when she has as many lovers as Finnick? "I don't know how he bears it."

Jack's voice is sad. "He bears it because he has to." He stands up again and moves toward her. A pace away, he stops.

She takes that last step, unsure what to do next. He hugs her, and her hands settle at his waist. She looks up at him, wondering if he'll kiss her. Wondering if she wants him to. She's never kissed anyone but Mels. "I don't know what to do."

His eyes are nothing but kind. He bends his head, and the first brush of his lips against hers is dry and soft. Nothing threatening. He kisses, licks, and nips. It makes her shiver, surprised to feel her nipples tighten. The sensation makes her lips part and she kisses back, lips and tongue and teeth.

After a few minutes, they stop. He leans his forehead against hers. "Still sure?"

She'd rather it was Rory. But he's not here, and Jack is, and Jack is her friend, too. "It feels good." Her voice is breathy and uncertain, but she gets the words out.

"It should. When you're with someone you care about, it really should."

She straightens up and brushes the pad of her thumb over his smile. She steps backward, just one step, and slips the straps of the long white dress over her shoulders, letting it slither to the floor. "Show me."

His face is flushed, and the look in his eyes appreciative. He takes her hands, kisses them, and draws her back toward the bed. His grip is loose. She could pull away if she wanted.

Barefoot and naked, with no makeup and no knife, she follows.

***

They lie sleepily in bed together afterward. She doesn't want to know what would happen to Jack if someone found her in his bed, but she doesn't have to go just yet, either.

"You wondered how Finnick bears it," he murmurs in her ear.

She nods.

"I think most of the victors have some way of coping. Finnick gets to see the rich and powerful when they're most vulnerable. He decided to learn their secrets."

"He's a spy?"

Jack doesn't answer that. Which is answer enough.

Amy follows the thought to its logical conclusion. "If he's a spy...then there's someone to spy for."

Jack strokes her hair. "Someone or something. You could get us killed by saying so."

"I won't." 

Finnick was taking President Snow's horrible expectations and making them useful. Becoming a tool. What kind of a tool, Amy wonders, could she make of herself? "I suppose that with all the cameras, it's difficult to pass messages," she says softly. "A goddess who walks through a lot different doors--" Her voice gets away from her and she has to clear her throat. "A woman like that could go anywhere without drawing attention. See anyone. Do you think that'd be useful?"

He's silent for a moment. "Probably. But to play that kind of game, you'd have to walk through more doors than just the ones President Snow will ask. Hide the occasional important meeting by making sure it looks like all the others that don't really matter."

It's not what she wants, but if she can be useful...if she can do anything to hurt President Snow and the cruelty of the Capitol...she has to. Has to steer, not just be tossed around by sea and storm. "Then it's just as well District 4 produces party-boys and -girls, isn't it?" She know she sounds bitter, but she also smiles.

She'll fight the unfightable in whatever way she can. She refuses to drown. She went to the Hunger Games because she was the best of the girls from District 4.

To hell with surviving. Amy Pond is going to fight.


	7. Epilogue

Yesterday Amy stood in a small room with President Snow. A tall, awkward girl from District 4, she'd been shocked and afraid of a man who, with all the power he had, would choose to use it in such a small, mean way.

Today Amy Pond, victor of the 71st Hunger Games, perches sideways on the edge of President Snow's desk. Confident. Decisive. She can almost convince herself she's in control. "You're right, of course," she says. "I have to. I'll go where you send me. But leave me enough time to play."

"Play?" President Snow is decidedly unamused. He's in love with his control. It would be so easy to let that control, that displeasure, rule her every moment in the Capitol.

She can't have that. " _Play_ , Mr. President. I can't be locked down to whoever you've sold me to all the time. I've got to have _some_ fun." She leans across his desk, lowering her voice, and murmurs, "Think of it as advertising. I promise to be very, very entertaining."

Mels, Amy thinks, would approve.

His eyes can't help but be drawn to her chest, where the vivid blue-green of her dress gapes away from her flesh, leaving him a peek at the skin between her breasts, and she knows she has him. One small victory for Finnick and Mels and everyone else touched by this horrible place. 

The first of many. She promises it to herself.

Amy Pond is a playful, whimsical goddess. Like the sea Jack created her from, she'll give her favor and take it away as she pleases, and her tides will erase all tracks. She'll bring life and laughter to the jaded Capitol masses.

And when the time comes, she will take it all away.


End file.
